Witness the Fitness

Bizarrely, the conditioning side of Strength & Conditioning seems to be commonly overlooked in athletic development. Whether that is due to the assumption that people get enough exposure from their technical training (most definitely not always the case), or just an over-reliance on the weight room for athletic development, it remains an issue that doesn’t always get the attention it should.

The aim of this article is to enable you to reassess your current fitness/conditioning plan, and decide whether or not it is really supporting you to maximise your physical capabilities. Hopefully, it can provide a little bit of insight and education around what the key considerations are when designing and implementing a plan, as well as debunking a few myths, and underlining the fact that the grey areas are enormous. With that in mind, it nicely leads me to my opening statement, and so let’s dive right in;

Moving away from X+Y=Z. It is incredibly easy to get drawn in to the idea that certain acts of physical acitvity, will result in a certain physical response, of a certain magnitude. Too many times do we see claims that “Programme X” will increase your bench press by 10% in 3 weeks, or that “Programme Y” will increase your “fitness” by 20% when it is nigh on impossible to make such claims with any real merit.

Yes, as practitioners, it is the responsibility of the coach to have targets in mind, and to look for adaptive improvement based on evidence informed practice, but to assume that because a study on high-schoolers, resulted in an AVERAGE increase of 10% in whatever means that applying the same method will ring true with every athlete, is nonsensical.

there are no guarantees in training response and that the direction and magnitude of response will vary from individual to individual

Whilst this may, and hopefully does, seem like common sense - I think it’s first important to establish that there are no guarantees in training response and that the direction and magnitude of response will vary from individual to individual, and that maybe you shouldn’t hold pre-determined treadmill running speeds, as gospel (I’ll come on to the “fat burning” claims shortly).

Understanding Energy Before we dive too much in to fitness, we need to understand a little bit more about the properties we are trying to develop. I by no means intend to turn this post into a chemistry lesson, but it’s important that we understand that our fitness training, should be designed to improve the rate in which we can supply energy for the working muscles. The human body has multiple different methods of producing energy, which comes from the use of AdenosineTriPhosphate (or ATP for short). Now, if you think of ATP as the currency of energy, you can start to understand that the body has multiple different ways of attaining that currency (making money!).

So if ATP is cash, know that there are some methods that are incredibly abundant in terms of their return on investment. There are quick fixes, that return decent profit, and there are other methods that take a little longer before you can bare the fruits of the labor. High intensity exercise requires quick turnover, a quick and rapid turn-around, and incredibly efficient income streams, with an understanding that it isn’t a sustainable venture... Longer, steady state exercise then, still requires cash flow, but via more sustainable methods that don’t necessarily require all hands to the pump.

When we’re training, and particularly when we are doing energy systems work, we are trying to streamline these systems to make them more efficient and effective. Increasing the amount of revenue potential by increasing our ability to uptake and transport oxygen, or increasing amount of service staff by building a larger, and more dense pool of mitochondria.

So think of your body as a corporation, that runs several different companies, all of which line your pockets at different rates. There are some in which cash is rapidly changing hands (high intensity exercise), and others that require a little patience (long duration exercise). So depending on the move your corporation is making, depends which company you’re going to pull the cash from to pay the bills Bare this analogy in mind as we now take a little look at some of the metabolic pathways relevant to performance.

it is impossible for us to switch energy systems on and off, and instead, there is a constant contribution from all energy systems, just merely at varying proportions depending on the task, and demand.

Aerobic/Anaerobic Two terms that are often used within the fitness and S&C industry to classify training sessions. This broadly refers to the primary energy system that is being used to convert ATP into energy, some of which require oxidative process (the use of oxygen), whereas others, that do-not. Although it is something I have also done in the past, it is unfortunately, quite a massive over-simplification. The point I want to highlight here is that it is impossible for us to switch energy systems on and off, and instead, there is a constant contribution from all energy systems, just merely at varying proportions depending on the task, and demand.

There is a massive emphasis on aerobic pathways, even during high intensity bouts, and there is a large body of evidence that underlines the importance of energy pathways that are reliant on oxygen, even within the first couple reps of maximal, short/single effort exercise. Although in recent years, there has been a surge in the popularity of high intensity interval training, there is still a home (in my opinion) in the performance programme for the development of aerobic capacity, and although the methods are many, the principles are few. Your ability to effectively transport and utilise oxygen does and will play an enormous effect on all energy system pathway, irrespective of exercise intensity.

Aerobic capacity and functionality is essentially the foundation of all fitness, and a good base of “aerobic fitness” means that you are more resistant to fatigue, more likely to recover quicker both inter-exercise, and post-exercise, and that improving aerobic capacity (VO2 Max), increases the efficiency and energy cost of sub-maximal tasks.

The Role of Substrate, When we often think of fitness, we think of our ability to utilise fuel sources (substrate) in return for energy, via the pathways mentioned above. It is not a secret that there is a higher contribution to energy production from fat metabolism, at lower relative intensities, and higher contributions from carbohydrate once training intensity increases. However, one thing that is often lost or at best over-simplified, is that substrate availability can, and will, have a significant effect on your bodies use of fuel.

Each of us, (athlete or not) have a maximum fat oxidation rate. This is the intensity in which we utilise fat as a fuel source at our fastest rate - something which you can have assessed at various laboratories or health & performance centers. Although this lays the foundation for the over-use of “fat burning zones” on treadmills and work-out apps, it is important to remember that this rate is different for each individual. Some people’s max fat oxidation rate is above their aerobic power (e.g MAS or Critical Power), whereas some people’s max fat oxidation rate occurs below this value.

Note for body composition* The substrate(s) you use for exercise, are then going to impact the substrate you use for energy when you finish. Exercising at an intensity aligned to your peak fat oxidation rate, may mean that you might use less carbohydrate energy during exercise than you would’ve done if you exercised a little harder - so that when you come into the post-exercise period, your carbohydrate stores aren’t going to be depleted, so there isn’t much incentive for the body to shift to fat oxidation at rest. Whereas, if you exercised harder than the aforementioned max fat oxidation rate, then you’re more likely to have burnt through carbohydrate at a higher rate during exercise, you’re consequentially more likely to preferentially use fat as a fuel in the post-exercise period.

So exercising in these zones, doesn’t necessarily equate to change in body composition, this instead relies on an understanding of the substrate use and substrate intake over days/weeks. Energy balance (calories in vs calories out) is still going to be the ultimate decider when it comes to manipulating body composition and body fat - as opposed to hopping on a treadmill and spending 20minutes in the “fat burning zone”

Carbohydrate metabolism however, rather than having a peak, followed by a drop off like fat oxidation, operates with linear increase. i.e. The harder you exercise, the more your body faster rate carbohydrate will be used for energy. At very high exercise intensities, fat oxidation and metabolism drops right off, and carbohydrate becomes key, playing an incredibly substantial role in energy provision. This is going to have a significant impact on your training response, if you are starting your exercise in a carbohydrate depleted state, or “carb-loaded up”, as to the stress different metabolic pathways are going to be placed under during exercise.

What effective training can do however, is manipulate the rate in which we deplete our carbohydrate stores (limited), by shifting our ability to utilise fat (essentially unlimited) at higher relative intensities - this is referred to as fractional utilization. It’s important to remember however that this holds much higher significance in those partaking in endurance/ultra-endurance or long duration exercise, as opposed to games players and combat athletes.Manipulating the substrate availability of any athlete though during a conditioning program can be beneficial in enhancing performance in the long run, and although touched on briefly in the Gas in the Tank blog, it’ll be covered off in more detail in a later blog post.

I personally think this is a massively important component for consideration when designing conditioning programs, the desired physiological adaptation/outcome can change quite drastically depending on substrate availability and intake pre/post/during exercise, in line with prescribed exercise intensity.

What are you getting? What really matters? What are you wasting your time on?

Away from food and back to the execution then, hopefully you understand that “fitness” is an incredibly complex model, consisting of numerous different working parts and cogs. Which sets me up nicely to use the analogy that “a machine is only as useful as the sum of it’s parts”.

Are you neglecting taxing the certain parts of the system, or certain cogs in the machine?

Ask yourself the three questions in the sub-heading, take a look at your current program and schedule, of course it’s important to know what is most important/valuable in your sport, but take a look at the bigger picture. Are you neglecting taxing the certain parts of the system, or certain cogs in the machine? Creating and implementing a well designed, well structured and progressive fitness program really can be the difference in being able to execute your skills with more efficiency, more impact, and more detriment to your opponent when it comes to competition. Just getting out and running/plodding for running sake 4 times a week is not going to give you the edge, nor is 6 HIIT sessions per week and neglecting everything else. Work smarter, not just harder for harder’s sake.

Follow Up

I’ll be following this up with another post in the coming weeks, going into a little bit more detail of designing an effective and appropriate conditioning program. But for now, I just wanted to give a broad overview, and hopefully provoke a bit of reflection. Ask yourself the question and start the conversation.

PRPerformance offers bespoke online, remote, and face-to-face programming support to a variety of athletes to help them maximise their performance and take their game to the next level. Whether it’s nutrition, strength & conditioning, or health and wellbeing, PRPerformance can assure you that there is progress to be made. Be sure to follow on twitter and Instagram to stay updated on the latest news and blog posts, as well as the sharing of resources and valuable insight. There’s loads more to come and I am excited about where we are heading. Start the conversation.

Thanks for reading,

Paul